Feu de Fer
by ConcreteAngelRoxHerHalo
Summary: Two broken souls meet in the deepness of a Maltese night. Ironfire AU. e/e.
1. malta

_i_

Gavroche was hardly more than a toddling babe the day the slavers came. Éponine remembers with horror and the mounting pain of vengeance how they snatched him from those sun-whitened rocks and carried him to the blue sea.

They tried to snatch her too, but she was a shadow and slipped from their fingers like spilt ink creeping over the exposed world. They wouldn't want her, anyway. They were looking for boys….

Gavroche cried her name and she could do nothing. Her fists clenched around the dry, Maltese grass that grew in the cracks between the rocks.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. Her young voice slipped into the breeze. The same breeze that carried the ship that held Gavroche far, far away. "I'm so sorry."

_ii_

To her dismay, the day comes when Éponine's hair is just too long. Her cheeks are too smooth. Her eyelashes are too long. Her lips too plump. Her body too fleshy.

She fights against her mother, but the day comes where Éponine is forced into a dress. Her old, leather jerkin is thrown to their dirty corner. The dark fabric crumples in a puff of dust. It reminds Éponine of how she felt in her heart the day Gavroche was captured.

A bony hand on her cheek strokes for a moment before seizing her chin and forcing her face to look into the grimy mirror.

"Look at yourself, girl— you're not a child any longer." Her mother's voice was tired and dry. Her hands were more like stone than flesh. Her eyes were voids of nothingness. She has not been the same since the day the slavers came… and she didn't even care for Gavroche that much. No, Éponine's mother hasn't been the same since disease took Azelma years before.

Éponine gives in and gazes at her reflection. Her eyes are the earth. Dull and brown and green and a mush of everything and nothing at the same time. Her hair is a thundercloud around her face. It is dark and tangled and wild and gives her the appearance of a dangerous storm. Her skin is browned by sun and dirt.

She is just as empty as her mother. Éponine is just as much the shadow she was the day they took Gavroche, only she's grown thin. Nothing as transparent as her can hold a heart.

_iii_

She's too old for stories. Her fifteen years exceed the other children's by a good five or six. But there _are_ other women there— but they are silly little things, their hair wrapped in fabric and their sad faces hidden from the warming sun.

The storyteller brightens her day, if only for the moment when words are twisting from the air to his lips and back again. They float over the breeze and wash her tangled hair away from her cold eyes.

"—and those heroes stormed the dusty city, and for the moment we were kings of Jerusalem!"

This is not her usual story. This tells naught of delicate princesses with crushed-flower veins and love-filed hearts. This is not a fairy tale, set alight by the sunset so it will glow in the dark. This is the gritty truth. It is history.

For a moment, Éponine's eyes drift away from the warm-skinned story teller and meet blue staring back. Those blue eyes belong to a girl whose light hair is just barely covered by cloth. Her face is pale and smooth. Her lips are plump and pretty. She is the princess from the stories. She has escaped her tower to hear of the crusaders. And now, she is smiling at Éponine.

Éponine smiles back.

_iii_

Years ago the people of Spain were thrown from the land just because the prayers they uttered were different from the Christian majority. No one stopped to think that they worshiped the same God. They wished for the same deliverance.

Those who didn't fall into the grasp of the Catholic church were expelled from the land. Those who agreed to Spain's terms were called _conversos_. It was a dirty, dirty word.

Cosette's people hide in the cliff's caves. They light menorahs and smile serenely in the darkness. They have built a community, one that Éponine slides into. It's so, so different from the harsh scolding she's used to. There are no high, gothic ceilings and no paintings of biblical tragedies. There is no priest, sour-faced and mean, whose hands wander under the skirts of the altar boys.

They're Cosette's family… the princess has a castle and a kingdom after all. Soon they become Éponine's too. Her parents never realize that she's gone.

_iv_

Éponine was foolish to think that she could trust anyone outside the hidden family of Jews. She was foolish to think that learning to read and write would come free of cost. _Foolish, foolish, foolish. _

He promised to teach her… and he did. The priest carefully taught Éponine the ways of the pen and paper. She was so grateful, and wanted to do something for him. When she told him this, he looked at her with glinting, cold eyes.

The priest seized her, threw her to the altar, and ripped her skirt. She screamed and flailed, but it did nothing… nothing at all.

Now she runs blindly, with tears spotting her vision. The terrain beneath her bare feet is rough and painful. As she nears the cliffs, she collapses. A young criminal, a man by the name of Montparnasse, finds her there several minutes later. He picks her up and brings her to the cave. He sets her down and swears vengeance on the man who dared to hurt the Jondrette girl.

_v_

Montparnasse's opportunity comes with the night of the fair. The knights who take station on Malta have prepared skits to present to the public, and there is the smell of cooked foods seeping across the plaza. Montparnasse sits in the tower, his silk vest nearly enough to match the clothing of the nobles who sit below him.

He takes aim at the priest while the knights from Paris say their lines atop a stage. The audience laughs, and an arrow rips loose.

It sinks into the priest's shoulder, and he looks down at the blood and up at the tower. Before collapsing from the pain, he lifts a weak arm to point. And then his eyes roll to the back of his head.

Éponine sees this happen from very nearby. She clutches to Cosette, terrified. Cosette looks back at her with wide eyes. Cosette's newest beau, a knight named Marius, grasps both girls and tries to pull them away from the chaos.

Running from the tower is a tall, slender shadow. Éponine sees the ruffles and gasps.

"'Parnasse, it was 'Parnasse," she whispers. She keeps her eyes trained on her criminally-inclined friend until the moment he collapses. She tears away from Cosette and Marius, pointing her head in their friend's direction.

"'Ponine, don't. You'll attract attention to him," Cosette murmers, trying to place a smooth, pale hand on Éponine's arm.

"He did it for _me_, Cosette… I have to go to him."

In the midst of their speaking, neither girl notices the men approaching them. However, Marius does and starts to back away carefully. Éponine realizes the shadows that have entwined with hers and Cosette's and she turns.

"You know the man who shot Dun Salvago?" It is one of the knights who was on the stage. His golden hair is now free from the ridiculous hat he'd borne grumpily. His face is slated in marble. Éponine gulps dryly.

"No, no I don't …" She tries to back away, but he grabs her arm. His friends, both of them knights from the stage, titter slightly and try to calm him.

"Enjolras, don't—" a boy with glasses tries to advise him.

"Why did he shoot him?" Enjolras asks Éponine. She trembles.

"Why do you care?" With sudden strength, she rips away from him.

"Because Dun Salvago has certain _habits_ that he inflicts on the younger knights. He deserves whatever he got," Enjolras says. Éponine allows a smile.

"Then I believe that you and Montparnasse will get along just fine," Éponine says. However, she remembers his falling figure and frowns. "But… I think he's hurt—"

"I trained to be a doctor before I was sent here." The bespectacled one smiles kindly. "Bring me to him."

In the meantime, the third of the trio, a man with wickedly curly hair and skin like bronze smirked at Marius. His name was Courfeyrac, Éponine would soon learn, and he was born of a New World native and a Spanish man.

"Marius, care to introduce me to this lovely lady?"

_vi_

It's Enjolras who ends up meeting Éponine everyday to tell her of Montparnasse's progress. And everyday he notices something new about her. She's beautiful and warm— she looks much like Courfyerac, although she's Maltese through and through (which pertains to her blood being a strange mix of Arabic, Italian, Spanish, African, French and whatever other bloodlines cared to grace the tiny, rocky island).

It takes only three meetings for him to realize that he thinks she is beautiful, the way Paris is… Beautiful and dirty, tragic and romantic. She is the Seine and the cobblestones. She is the smell of coffee and chocolate. She is Paris until she replaces Paris and soon the only home he cares to know is in her eyes.

_vii_

"Why did Montparnasse shoot him?" Enjolras asks one day. The two of them sit side-by-side on the same cliff that, years ago, Éponine stood on as she watched her brother carried away. The blue of the Mediterranean sparkles in their eyes.

"He did a terrible thing," Éponine whispers. Enjolras sits beside her, an entity for her to touch and to hold, but she is scared to. What if he leaves her the way Gavroche did? What if battle takes him before she can?

He's stripped down to his tunic and leggings. His boots and jerkin and helmet have been discarded in the dry grass. She wears a tunic tucked into one of Cosette's old skirts. Her bare feet occasionally brush against his.

"What did he do?"

"What did he do to your friends?"

"He comes every Friday for reconciliation. He tells some of the knights— only the prettiest ones— that their penance must be physical. He _touches_ them in the confessional, and he makes them touch him back. Will you tell me now?"

"He raped me." Her voice is nearly lost on the wind. "On the altar one day."

Enjolras lays his hand atop hers. She jolts at the sudden contact, but something warm starts in the pit of her stomach when he entwines their fingers.

"I was one of those boys," he tells her.

_viii_

It starts innocently. With a kiss to Éponine's brow one day when they part.

The nest day she kisses his cheek.

Shortly after they find themselves tangled in a pile of pale and gold, two lost souls together on the cliffside. He kisses her neck and she strokes his skin. They love in the Maltese sun.

* * *

**This may have a second part… I don't know yet, it depends if people read. **


	2. the knights of st john

_ix_

He places no blame on her—none whatsoever. It's all his fault. _He _is the one who's broken his vow of chastity. _He_ is the one who fell in love and followed it through. _He_ is the one who doesn't have the heart to lose his precious Maltese princess.

He calls her this sometimes. It starts off as a tease, but soon grows genuine. The two of them lay lazily in the sand. His fingers trace circles on her warm skin. One of her hands is tangled in his curls. His lips are flushed and parted. Her eyes are half-closed.

"Princess of Malta," he murmurs. His voice is gravelly, and nearly lost, nearly drowned in the sound of the waves lapping the shore. She hears him though, and her dark eyes fly open. She's set on fire, the red in her hair glowing and her eyes shining.

She can't seem to say anything, but there are tears in her eyes. He manages a smile, but she knows that he's not kidding. To him, she _is_ the ruler of this island. She is all that matters on this barren rock. He feels bad for putting such weight on her shoulders, but it is his cross to bear as well. Should he be discovered… he shudders to think of what might become of him. What might become of _her_.

"My princess," he repeats. She smiles this time, curling closer to him. Her nipple presses against the smooth expanse of his chest. He presses his chin against her hair, inhaling the smell of the sea. He understands, to a certain extent, that it must be jarring to her. She has been a peasant all her life, and now she is the highest of the high in someone's eyes.

He hopes she understands how much she means to him.

_x_

Courfeyrac and Combeferre find out by accident. Or, not really an _accident_, per se, but a mistake on Enjolras's part. His carelessness leads his two best friends to become part of the delicate relationship that strings together him and the Princess of Malta.

And, even _they_ find out through someone else—a local drunk who stumbles across Enjolras and Éponine kissing goodbye. Apparently she knows this mysterious man, for the moment he appears, her jaw relaxes and her lips turn down into a frown. Despite a dangerous matter on the verge of destroying them, all Enjolras can focus on is the plumpness of her lips—bruised and swollen from their most recent embrace.

"Grantaire, please—" she begins, but the man cuts her off.

He's much like the other peasants… he is a speck of dust on the Princess's island. This man, this… _Grantaire_ hardly stands out to Enjolras. However, the delicacy of the situation works to help him put to mind the unattractive (… and slightly grotesque) face of Éponine's fellow peasant.

"I won't bother you, 'Ponine," the man assures. A flash of jealousy scorches Enjolras… however, it is thankfully soothed by Éponine's sisterly glance towards the man. "But you should be careful." Grantaire fixes Enjolras with a snarl. "Those knights of St. John are no good."

Enjolras knows it to be true, and sees this as a way out of this disaster with Éponine. However, when she kisses him sweetly the moment Grantaire is gone, her eyes flash like the darkest currents and it's _just enough_ for Enjolras to know that he's far too selfish to let her go.

_xi_

There's a man.

It's a tad much to think of him as human after what he did.

Éponine saw it with her own eyes when she was very, very young. She was hardly older than Gavroche was when he was taken.

There was a pretty lady standing on the corner, but for whatever reason, Éponine's mother looked at the woman with a disgusted stare. Even young Éponine knew enough to know that this woman, for whatever reason, was below them. It felt strange to look at such a pretty lady, dressed in a tattered (and yet still lovely) red dress and a yellow armband, and know that dirty Éponine was _better_ than her.

A man approached this woman and said something to her. The woman shook her head and turned away. The man wore a white tunic with a blood-red cross on it. The cross matched the color of the lady's dress.

The lady started shaking and backing away.

"Mama, maybe we should help—"

"No, Éponine. This scum is not worthy of our help or the Lord's."

This was even stranger. According to the priest, the Lord loved everyone. Surely he would love such a lovely woman as this.

The man made a sudden move, shoving pebbles down the front of the lady's dress. The lady screeched and scratched her nails along the mean man's face. Blood spurted like shooting stars across his cheek. He gasped.

Now Éponine knows names to those faces. The man was a knight named Bamatabois. He was French, like Enjolras and Courfeyrac and Combeferre, but he was a different type. He was cruel. He was one of the ones who laughed at Éponine when she went to the knights begging for a search party to be sent after Gavroche.

The woman was Cosette's mother, Fantine.

_xii_

"Have you seen Cosette?"

It's a rarity when one of the members of the cave society speak to another outside of their safe haven. It is because of this (and the dangerous tone in Jean Valjean's voice) that Éponine knows that something is terribly wrong. She shakes her head once, just long enough for him to see and short enough so that it doesn't seem that they're engaged in an improper conversation.

Éponine hurries immediately to the knight's barracks. Standing at the gates, much to Éponine's relief, is a familiar face.

"Courfeyrac!" she exclaims. He notices her and looks about to make sure that they're not being watched. He steps forwards quickly.

"What is it?" he sounds harsh, but she knows it's just because they have limited time.

"Is Marius around?" she asks.

"No.. he left a few days ago. He quit the order, he's back in Paris."

"Oh, no…" Éponine murmurs. She thinks of how this one was the one Cosette intended to keep. She worries that perhaps Cosette has done something drastic once faced with lost love.

"Here's the thing." Courfeyrac's voice is more humorous as he speaks again, "He took Cosette with him."

_xiii_

Before she leaves, Cosette sneaks into the infirmary with the help of Marius. She has a scarf wrapped around her copper hair and her pale skin is concealed by shadows. She creeps to the bed that contains the boy that's like a brother to her.

"Montparnasse," she whispers. "Are you awake?"

"Cosette?" he murmurs. "How are you here?"

"I've snuck in," she says. "Are you feeling well?"

"As well as I can knowing of my inevitable capture the moment I leave this sanctuary."

She chuckles. "Well, let's hope that you're slippery enough to escape."

Montparnasse forces himself to sit up. "What of Éponine?"

Cosette freezes, knowing of her friend's crush on her closest friend. "She's… well."

"…well?" he asks.

"She's… um…"

"Out with it, Cosette." He's as impatient as always. It almost pulls Cosette's sweet lips into a smile. Almost.

"She'sfoundherselfalover," Cosette forces out. Montparnasse blinks up at her for a moment. It's almost as if the words 'Éponine' and 'lover' never made a connection in his mind. However, his gaze (almost innocent) returns to the simmering, bored look it's taken on recently.

"As long as she's happy."

"I've come to say goodbye," Cosette says.

"Goodbye, then."

She nods and pulls the scarf tighter around her head.

And that's that.

_ixv_

Gavroche is the top. He is the best. And it's a great feeling.

When you're the best, you're given whatever you want by the sultan. So it is this man that Gavroche bows to. His blond hair brushes against the immaculate floor. The now familiar spices grace his nose and the lull of Arabic is familiar to his ears.

"Stand, boy. Allah be praised," the sultan says. His voice is firm with authority. Steel-edged like a sword.

"Allah be praised," Gavroche responds.

"I've heard that you are unhappy at being put in the cavalry," he begins. "I don't understand why. With your intelligence and physical ability, you would rise quickly to the top ran—"

"I wish to captain a fleet," Gavroche interrupts. Knowing his mistake, he fixes his gaze on the floor. He waits with a pounding heart for whatever punishment he will receive due to his rudeness. However, he hears a slightly raspy sound. Looking up, he's shocked to see the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire _laughing_.

"Of course, boy…" he says. "You may have a fleet of ships."

"Thank you," Gavroche says. He wonders where he will go first…

Malta. Where his sister and his parents are.

Where the bastard knights of St. John are. Those knights who Gavroche prayed for. Those knights who, just like Éponine, never came.

Even though his life is better for it (there is no way that a boy of Gavroche's social standing would get an education back on Malta), he is determined to get his revenge.

_xv_

Bamatabois isn't stupid. Perhaps he's not the smartest in the bunch, but he knows that one of the other French knights is acting peculiar. The boy who once was a top defender of the words "Gold, God, and Glory" (more familiar to the explorers than to the knights, but a phrase that is universal to all men of the time) now seems distracted. Distant. He's stopped caring about the gold, and it seems that God is a close second of his to be forgotten. Hopefully the glory won't go anywhere.

Now he darts around secretively, occasionally muttering about the "people" and the "state of the country". Bamatabois worries that this promising young knight may have fallen into the worst corruption of all: that of righteousness.

He doesn't know what's wrong with Enjolras (surely not the same as that Pontmercy fellow who eloped with a local whore), but he's sure to find out.

Next time that Enjolras leaves, Bamatabois throws on a cloak and follows him.

_xvi_

The week that Montparnasse is released from the infirmary is the same that Grantaire departs on a short trip to Sicily. Montparnasse, thankfully, manages to evade the police and make it to the safety of the cave. It is because of his safety that Éponine herself feels safe enough to accept an offer that Grantaire makes her.

She slips a note to Combeferre that simply has an address on it, as well as a time and a day. She darts away from the barracks feeling naughty and giddy all at once. The sun baked cobblestones burn her bare feet. The wind tears through her hair and her tattered skirt, threatening to send her entire being into the sea. She feels much like either an angel or some sort of terrifying witch.

It doesn't matter. Whatever entity she is, it is what Enjolras wants.

And, at three fifteen at Grantaire's hut, they meet.

For a short while, they have a safe haven.

_xvii_

"Enter, Luc Enjolras," the steely voice of La Valette calls him into the council. The moment he opens the door, he's seized. Shocked, he looks up, only to see a smirk facing him. That on the face of Bamatabois.

"For your behavior with the Thérnardier girl, we condemn you to an uncertain sentence in the dungeon."

Enjolras feels his life torn away as he's led out of the barracks. He passes his fellow knights on the way, eyes bearing into him. He forces himself to maintain composure. But it's hard, very, very hard.

He can't help himself from wondering…

What's happening to Éponine?

_xviii_

It's dark and cold. Enjolras knows that time is passing only because of the increasing scruffiness of his face. He shivers in the dirty dankness. It could still be the very moment he was thrown in here, the moment that seems so recent and yet so distant at the same time.

Up ahead (miles ahead), a trap door opens. A piece of (thankfully fresh) bread is thrown down along with a skin of water. Something else hits him, something papery and stiff. Before the light disappears, he unfolds the paper and reads the first few sentences, written in Combeferre's handwriting:

_Dear Enjolras,_

_We are doing well up here, but we miss you.. especially Courfeyrac and I. The knights, especially those who hail from France, are lost without you. You were a leader to them, my friend. _

_However, I bring grave news as well. Unfortunately, I must tell you of Éponine Thérnardier—_

Then the light is gone. Enjolras quite nearly howls with frustration.

Tell me of Éponine Thérnardier's… pregnancy? Imprisonment? Torture? Death?

Enjolras clutches the letter to his chest and waits for the trap door to open. In the midst of his worry, his skin and bread go untouched.

_ixx_

Éponine is fine. Well, not _fine_, but alive. She sits in a room that is dimly lit, listening to screams surrounding her. All desperate. All male. All of them, at the right time of night, turn into Enjolras.

She does all she can do.

She waits with tears streaming down her face and her hands clasped over her ears.

_xx_

They're both released from their small rooms of hell. One day, the trap door opens and remains so. A rope ladder is thrown down. Enjolras gingerly climbs, but it feels as though all the strength has left his bones. Filled with embarrassment, he calls up, "I can't… I can't climb."

The rope ladder is slowly pulled up. Inch by inch, the light grows stronger. The faces of Combeferre and Courfeyrac fade into focus. He falls into their arms, feeling like a bag of loose bones.

Éponine's is more difficult. She's questioned, first by the cruel but polite La Valette and then by the rude and crude Bamatabois. Only after it becomes clear that she has no intentions of being a spy is she released. However, it isn't until after Bamatabois attempts to use her body many, many times.

She comes into the sunlight and it feels like a second birth. She bumps into Combeferre immediately, and knows it is no accident. He bends down to whisper, "Enjolras is leaving… he's been put on the galleys."

And then he walks away. Éponine registers what he's told her and she rushes to the docks.

She gets to the cliff overlooking the ships just in time to see a ship depart with a familiar face aboard. He's still beautiful, even though he's been paled and thinned by time. His eyes are downcast, but it is through some stroke of luck that he looks up as the ship sails away. He meets her eyes and holds his handcuffed hand up in a short wave.

Éponine waves back. A pang in her heart reminds her of all that she's lost. Gavroche. Cosette. Enjolras.

She watches until the ship disappears into the turquoise Mediterranean.

_**-**__to be continued-_

**Reviews make me happy, especially since this hasn't gotten many notes on tumblr *insert broken heart gif here*. **

**There will be two or three more collections of drabbles, I think. Hope everyone keeps reading!**

**I do not own Les Mis or David Ball's Ironfire. **


End file.
